Convergence of 5G RAN and optical access: a coordinated resource allocation framework

© 2018 IEEE. The traditional Radio Access Network (RAN) and optical fronthaul network architecture maintains the resource allocations of wireless-end and optical-end separated from each other with their own QoS requirements. With the increasing requirements of diverse applications in future RAN architectures, this traditional resource allocation approach undesirably leads to the resource under utilization and thus restricts the acceptance of demands into the network. To overcome these issues, we propose a new converged RAN/Fronthaul network architecture in which Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing Passive Optical Network (OFDM-PON) undertakes the role of optical fronthaul for 5G RAN. We consolidate the functionalities of wireless and optical resource allocation such that a Coordinated Optical and WireLess (COWL) resource allocation framework is used to facilitate the globalized End-to-End (E2E) QoS requirements for the converged network. The proposed framework proves to be more scalable to increasing neîwork load and to various resource granularities.